


Repetition

by JackyM



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (for blacklisting purposes!), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Juno Steel Needs a Hug, M/M, Mentioned Sarah Steel, Spoilers for Soul of the People Part Two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 11:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17866532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyM/pseuds/JackyM
Summary: Pots and pans tumbling out of a cabinet stir up some unwanted memories.





	Repetition

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, a pound of tin nuggets actually sells for about twenty dollars! It is important to me that you do not undervalue tin! All elements are special, including tin! Love her like the goddess that she is. I also care about desert ecosystems and Johnson's sea cucumbers! Scientifically those two things are just so fascinating. And also scientifically they have nothing to do with what I'm saying here.
> 
> Secondly! This is my first longer fic for this fandom! I caught up with TPP last week and HFOGOOG GOSH THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST INTERPRETATIONS OF ABUSE I'VE EVER SEEN!! It's so cathartic and good and it has such WONDERFUL characters!! <3 Part of why I'm writing this now is so that I can write out this idea before canon events contradict this fhbghgb. >W<
> 
> Thirdly! This has some abuse stuff, so please do not read this to upset yourself. I care about you! 
> 
> And fourthly! I am on Tumblr at hushpupper! Talk to me about TPP if you want to!!! :D

It had just been some pots tumbling out of a cabinet.

The spaceship jerked a little bit, and instead of getting carefully lifted out of their resting place, a bunch of pots came out of the cabinet in a cacophonous avalanche.

And Juno would’ve helped Rita and a man who’d been looking at him with dazzlingly transfixed eyes (a man who was not currently going by Peter Nureyev, Juno had to keep reminding himself), except, god, that noise.

The noise was unpleasant, a unanimous statement that never needs to be said when pots and pans move at their own accord and could be heard.

Actually, word “unpleasant” did a mediocre job at conveying just how much the noise bothered him. Because it didn’t just bother him.

It did something worse than that. It was a burgeoning feeling, a dull ache at first. A reignition of a sensory memory that grew and wriggled through his head until it seemed to lodge itself in his forehead and refused to go away. It came so slowly, and yet, when that dull ache became a sharp pain that refused to go away, it all seemed to fall on him so quickly.

For a few brief seconds, he thought that maybe he could ignore how it made him feel. It was just a loud noise, and it was ridiculous of him to think other people weren’t startled by loud noises.

But also, it was a loud noise that never sat right with him. Sometimes it was just the pots, with her. For whatever reason. She didn’t think he’d cleaned them well enough. She didn’t think he put them away properly. She couldn’t find something and blamed him for its disappearance. Maybe she just wanted something to complain about. That seemed like the case sometimes. And she’d empty out all the cabinets, saying it was all because he just didn’t care, waiting for his defensive response. She wanted one; she wanted to hear him say he thought he put things away properly, saying she was the last one who saw what she was looking for. Once she had an excuse from him, she could have reason to start yelling, to throw metal bowls at him and tell him she hoped he’d rot. Rot in hell. That’s what people like him get. When he flinched away from her, that seemed to make her even angrier, and she’d ask him what she ever did to make him think she would come after him like that. He was being stupid, she said. Stupid, and mean-spirited. Just like he’d always been. And Juno would clean up her mess, whenever she gave up on yelling at him and stormed off. Cleaning up, after her, a sniffling and trembling mess.

She wasn’t even a good cook.

The hell’d she have all of those pots and pans and bowls for?

Rita noticed Juno looking forlornly and distractedly up at the ceiling, and tilted her head while giving him a concerned expression, an expression shared in a more subdued manner by a man with absolutely shining eyes. Juno really didn’t know how Peter could do that. How movements and facial expressions could be so quiet and dramatic at the same time. Rita’s shouting shook Juno out of his excited mess of feelings, excited only in the sense that they were wild and difficult to control.

“Boss! You okay?”

Juno’s gaze flickered to her, briefly, and then back to the ceiling.

“Yeah. Fine, Rita. It’s...it’s nothing.”

“Naw, it’s not just nothin’. You always get that look when you’re thinkin’ about somethin’ serious.”

“Well, I’m not. Can’t you just drop it?”

“Nuh-uh, I’m not gonna drop nothin’. Mista Steel, if you keep using all of ya brainpower for thinkin’ about nothing, all of ya blood’s gonna go to your brain and none will be left for your heart, and that’s gotta be bad for your health.”

“That is not how like, anything works. Are you still watching Open Heart Surgery? Weren’t you like, with me for that entire case? The reason that the blood was coming out of people’s hearts like that is because they planted blood in the bodies before the show started. It had nothing to do with their personal or family history with blood pressure, and also explains why so much blood was missing from hospitals in the area. _Because they were stealing blood and pumping it into hearts for dramatic effect_ , Rita.”

“Open Heart Surgery isn’t there for medical info! Jeez! It’s there for the drama! It has a _point_!”

“The only point it ever had was that you need to research how bodies work before giving an alibi.”

“Aw, come on now, Mista Steel, you know that ain’t true. I’m just sayin’ if you get a heart attack then I can’t show you how to make an omelette. I gotta show you n’ Mista...sorry, I can never remember ya name, what was it? But I gotta show you how to make an omelette the Rita way and we can only do it with a pan with no grooves and, dang it, what is your name?”

Rita turned to look at a man whose name was Peter Nureyev, and Juno almost told Rita in irritation this seemingly obvious fact before biting his own tongue, and admittedly, recognizing Rita had no reason to call Peter anything other than his current pseudonym.

“Oh, really, it’s no trouble, it’s--”

“No, wait, wait, don’t tell me, I can remember! I remember because ya had to tell me like four times who you were because ya sound a lot like the Dark Matters guy the boss used to work with, old Mista Rex Whatshisface. Was it Window?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I’ve never met a man with a name like that. Not the most grabby name, if I’m being honest.”

“Well it was _somethin’_ that was breakable. And at first I thought you were an identical twin, like Tata and Musa Esben in the Mixed Up Galaxies of the Identical Esbens, and you were filling in for your twin and doin’ their job like Musa had to because Tata was brutally murdered in a freak thumb-wrestlin’ accident, which was actually all orchestrated by their family’s arch-nemesis Firuz Milagros who by the way looked really weird in that suit the whole movie, orange was just not his color. And neither was blue, it ain’t like that splash of neon was doin’ him any favors. But anyways then I was like, wait, no, ya talk a little different, and also isn’t it true that at least eight other people in the galaxy look at least a lot like you do? I’m pretty sure that’s true. It’s definitely true for you, Mista Sterling. I’m not a scientist or nothin’, but that sounds pretty true. That’s how they managed to trick Firuz into crashing his own ship, because they found a guy who looked just like him who convinced the rest of his spaceship crew that he was still at home playin’ knife chess.”

“Pray tell, what is knife chess?”

“It’s chess, but you and ya opponent get a knife. You can do whatever ya want with the knife. It’s your knife! Oh, boy, Mista Sterling, my friend Frannie, she’s so good at knife chess. It’s always in the pomegranates, ya never see it comin’. Although once she disguised one of the asteroid patrol cars as the knife when the knife was actually in her fridge, and I’m tellin’ ya, Mista Sterling, n’ I--where’s the boss? Did you see him leave? Oh, he always does that, leavin’ once I got distracted talkin’ about a movie or somethin’.”

“I can look for him,” offered Peter, but adding with a smile, “though I certainly hope that you won’t take my leave as indicative of my lack of interest on what you were talking about. I would love to know more about knife chess.”

“Aww, jeez, Mista Sterling, you say the _nicest_ things. Go find Mista Steel, tell him that Rita won’t make him breakfast unless he’s here and _listenin’_ to Rita. And uh, if he doesn’t feel like listenin’, tell him he’s got a lot of makin’ up to do because I ain’t gonna sit here and talk about knife chess without an audience of at least two.”

 

Juno didn’t feel particularly great about leaving while Rita was talking; it was rude, and it wasn’t like he wanted to.

It was more along the lines of, if he heard anyone else talking in an even remotely loud volume after that much noise coming from pans banging together, he didn’t know how much he could hold it together. It made him mad, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe because it was stupid to let this kind of thing be a problem, to be a grown adult who’s still afraid of loud noises. Maybe it was because his response to loud voices and loud clattering was just one of defense, and his body was betraying his mind by responding the way it always had.

He could understand why, but it didn’t change how he felt like shit about getting this angry about the whole situation. He loved Rita, dearly, but he had to leave the situation before that assessment could be challenged.

 _Pull it together, Steel_ , he thought to himself, _it’s not anyone’s fault. Well, it’s Mom’s, but it’s not like anyone right now did anything._

As much as he wanted to yell, please, goddammit, just be quiet, please shut up, don’t make any more noise, that wasn’t something he was going to do.

So he slumped against the wall in his quarters and waited for this feeling to go away, every little noise disrupting his state of mind like a speck of dust on the most delicate scale in the universe.

The sound of footfalls outside made Juno tense up. He pulled his arms around his body and tightened his grip on himself. God, he couldn’t.

“Rita. I can’t right now. Please.”

“Juno? Are you feeling alright? Rita sent me to look for you once she noticed you left. She is under the impression you left out of boredom.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Man, it was impossible to tell it was him without the heels.

“Hey, Sterling. You didn’t want to tell me it was you so I wouldn’t be yelling the wrong name out the door?”

“Even I did, Juno, I feel you would have been shouting the wrong name regardless.”

Juno gave a muffled “hmph”.

“Would you like to be left alone, then?”

A question that weirdly held a lot of weight.  

Because Juno did want to be left alone, because he didn’t want to talk to anyone, but at the same time, he didn’t want to have to sit through this by himself.

“I do, if you’re going to ask me about what that was about and tell me you’re concerned. I don’t need you to come and tell me that. Because I don’t want or need that right now. And because I know how...how you and Rita feel. You don’t have to keep telling me. I get it. You don’t need to keep reminding me, over and over.”

A short pause.

“If you would prefer silent company, Juno, I can offer that.”

Juno took a few moments to think it over.

“Yeah, fine. Whatever. Just don’t ask anything.”

He let Peter in, and Peter sat next to him against the wall.

Neither of them said anything.

They stayed that way for a while.

The smell of Peter’s cologne assuaged Juno’s nerves. Juno inched a little closer to where Peter was sitting. He couldn’t help it. Maybe it was how provocative and heady that cologne was, the kind of thing that makes people naturally feel more relaxed. Given his profession, that made sense, and was, unfortunately, effective.

Juno had slowly moved close enough to Peter that he could rest his head on Peter’s shoulder. The smooth fabric of his shirt felt nice. The smell of something herbal and spicy caressing Juno’s senses like a warm embrace also felt nice. All of this felt nice. A set of thin fingers weaved themselves into the spaces between Juno’s, gently. They felt as though they had been there before, enough times that the motion was completely effortless, and difficult to notice. The position they were in was uncomfortable, and unbearably so. The floor was uneven and bumpy, the walls were rigid and making clunking noises despite having nothing to clang into, and the metal box they were situated in was cold and about as pliant an asteroid's trajectory.

And yet, this felt comfortable.

In the relative quiet and privacy of their embrace, Juno nudged Peter.

“Can I tell you something, Nureyev?”

“You can tell me as many things as you’d like.”

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Mmm, yes. You’ve told me that. Are you perhaps repeating it because some things, though people know them to be true, are worth getting repeated over and over? Because they are incredibly meaningful things to say to people?”

“ _Yes_ , Nureyev, I am.”

“You don’t need to talk about things you are not comfortable with, Juno. Just know that we care.”

“My entire reason for...that, it was all something I don’t want to talk about.”

“And that is understandable. A thief never answers or asks questions that do not need answers. And many questions are like that.”

“Huh. Sounds absolutely nothing like being a private investigator. The opposite, really.”

“Commiting crimes is often seen as the opposite of solving crimes, yes.”

“Knock it off, Nureyev. You know what I mean. I never thought of things that way before. From that angle. I thought maybe a question without an answer was always a bad thing. Suggestive of something really bad and...immoral. Like by definition, it was hiding something insidious. Maybe it’s not any of that. Maybe it’s just what it says on the tin. A question without an answer. Not a good or a bad thing, just something you don’t know.”

Juno let himself smile, faintly.

Peter tilted his head. 

“Pardon me, tin?”

“I dunno, it’s an expression people born on earth use.”

“If I may, it sounds like an inexpensive metal.”

“So not something worth stealing, then. Remind me to cover the blankets in tin, if tin ends up being a cheap metal that professional intergalactic thieves don’t like taking. I'll finally be able to not freeze to death.”

Peter’s smooth laugh rumbled in his chest and Juno hated how quickly that made him flush.

“Oh, Juno. Why do you torment me so relentlessly?”

Juno closed his eyes at the sensation of Peter’s lips brushing against his forehead.

Juno let his head slide a little further down Peter’s chest.

“Hey. Thanks.”

The fingers interlaced with his squeezed gently.

“Of course, Juno.”

In a few moments, he figured he’d be able to pull himself up, and apologize to Rita for leaving so suddenly, and then get accosted with a hug that he’d try to pretend to resist but in truth appreciated.

Just not yet. Not with his head on Peter’s shoulder, their fingers intertwined, their forms pressed closely together after once so much distance.


End file.
